Mortier

As many of his remarks as I find silly or worse (including some in this very article), Gérard Mortier gets one big thing right:

Mortier told the audience of directors, theater administrators and dramaturges that encouraging audiences to see opera onscreen was giving up the crucial element of the art form, the live experience, according to a report from Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

"We shouldn't bring opera to the movies; we should bring people from the movies to the opera," he said.

Gelb's idea, of course, is to do the latter via the former. Whether it works, or whether the tail wags the dog, we'll see in future.

Incidentally, the New York Sun carried a more City Opera-specific piece on their new general manager a few weeks ago.